


Incident at South Cascade

by Bluewolf458



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Gen, Sentinel Thursday
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-11
Updated: 2017-03-11
Packaged: 2018-10-02 16:57:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10222922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bluewolf458/pseuds/Bluewolf458
Summary: Students who don't like the grades they have been given...





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Sentinel Thursday recycled prompt 'prospect'

Incident at South Cascade

by Bluewolf

Although it was one of Cascade's recognized beauty spots - a mile or two south of the city, a small parking lot had been built at a place that gave an unrestricted view of the ocean - during the week it was usually deserted.

Blair often went there when he was tired and needing to recharge his batteries. Extrovert though he was, there were times when he found that having other people around was amazingly stressful. Of course, being a TA who was willing to go that extra mile to help a struggling student didn't help his stress levels; nor did his frustration over the students who, despite his best efforts, didn't seem able - or willing - to put in more than the minimum work needed to obtain a barely passing grade. Himself an almost obsessive learner, he couldn't understand anyone who seemed content to plod along with only the barest surface knowledge of anything.

Oh, he could understand the people who weren't interested in a subject pretty well ignoring it, but if they were taking a subject, surely it had to hold some interest for them? But he knew that some students - mainly the ones on sports scholarships - had to take some academic subjects, and they mostly looked for what they thought would be the easy options - though why they should think anthropology was an easy option was beyond his comprehension. Was it because anthropology and archaeology were seen as soft sciences, and they saw 'soft' as a synonym for 'easy'?

Well, the jocks who took his classes soon learned their mistake!

Most of them, he had to admit, accepted that he wouldn't give them an easy pass - over the years, two or three had even developed a genuine interest in the subject, and planned - once their sports careers had finished, being pragmatic enough to realize that a career in sport was likely to be fairly short-lived - to have an eventual career in anthropology. But there had also been two or three who were totally egotistic, seemed to think that they were the best baseball/basketball/football players the world had ever seen - or would ever see - and apparently believed that they should automatically be given a passing grade in every academic subject they took. One of them had assaulted a lecturer who had given him a poor grade - Dr. Barnard had suffered brain damage as a result, was no longer able to work, and the would-be professional football player had begun a twenty-year sentence.

If the others had hoped that Barnard's injuries would persuade the other lecturers to cave in to threats, they soon discovered that they were wrong. After one threat, a month or so after Porteus went to prison, was reported to the police - with evidence in the form of a video, because the professor involved was a believer in 'insurance' and automatically recorded all his meetings with students - and Evan York, the student involved, was given a six-month sentence and expelled from Rainier, the threats stopped.

The prospect of time in prison instead of gathering acclaim in their favored sport was enough to discourage most of them from protesting low grades, and even the ones who muttered among themselves what they would like to do to the lecturers who denied them an automatic A grade didn't dare act on it, probably thinking that more of the lecturers - even the TAs - would have started taping their meetings with the students.

But this day... for some reason Blair had felt uneasy; and so he came to this viewpoint to relax. He would, he decided, sit and unwind for an hour before heading for the PD. Even though he was sure the place would be deserted, he was careful to lock the car doors.

A few minutes after he arrived, another car drove in and stopped where it automatically blocked the road out. He had his phone out and was already hitting speed dial one when the two men in the car got out. He knew them instantly. Two of his laziest students - though they weren't sports jocks - the brothers were known to the Rainier staff as 'the terrible twins'.

"Ellison."

"Jim, I'm at the South Cascade viewpoint. Two students have blocked the road and are headed my way."

"Lock the doors - "

"Already done, but they could break a window." Though there was nothing lying around that they could use.

"I'll be there in a few."

The exchange had taken only seconds; he slipped the phone back into his pocket. No need for these idiots to know he'd called for help.

One of them tried to open the car door. He wound the window down an inch. "What are you wanting?"

"A better grade than you've given us!"

"You both got the grade you deserved. And why are you approaching me here, rather than at Rainier?"

"Your mistake, coming here where you can't possibly tape us. It'll be your word against ours, and there are two of us to alibi each other."

As the second one joined his brother, carrying two sticks he had clearly found in the wood, Blair wound the window closed. Then the two of them began to hit the windows.

One stick broke; the other one was sturdier, and the driver's window cracked.

"Get away from there!"

The two students gaped at the Patrol cops who stood there, guns drawn. One sprinted for their car, reached it and stopped when he saw that the police car was blocking the road out... and a pickup was just pulling in behind it. Blair smiled as Jim approached, unlocked his door and got out.

"All right, Chief?"

"Yes." He grinned at the Patrol cops. "Harris and Morgan arrived before those idiots did more than slight damage to my car - and they saw what 'the terrible twins' were doing. So - " He looked at the brothers. "It's not just my word against yours. It's the word of the police against yours. And I'm pressing charges."

Blair watched as the brothers were taken to the police car, Jim following them. Harris moved their car, and as the police car moved into the parking lot to turn, Blair waved to them. Then Jim drove his pickup into the parking lot as well. As the police car drove off, Jim rejoined Blair. "Think you can drive with that cracked window?"

"Yes," Blair said.

"And you're definitely pressing changes?"

"Yes." He sighed. "You'd think they'd have learned from what happened to Porteus and York... With luck this pair will get a prison sentence too - certainly they'll have a police record; and this, the third incident - should surely discourage any other students from trying to threaten the staff."

"Right - let's get back to the station and help get things in motion."

"And thank Harris and Morgan for their timely arrival."

They grinned at each other. Blair let Jim go first, and followed him.

Life was back to normal.


End file.
